Quotation
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“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.”
Jeremy Bentham · Utilitarianism · Enlightenment · 1789
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the opening as the foundation of the principle of utility: pain and pleasure govern both what people actually do and the standard of what they ought to do, so that morals and legislation have a natural measure. A rival reading hears a crude claim that every motive is a twinge, missing his later detail about motives, sanctions, and the calculation of consequences. The sentence opens chapter 1. The principle itself is stated in the paragraphs that follow, in terms of the tendency to augment or diminish happiness.
Did Jeremy Bentham really say this?
The library’s label is Well attested. Bentham's own English, the opening of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, chapter 1. Pleasure and pain determine what we ought to do as well as what we do, on his account. The wording is secure.
Where it comes from
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, chapter 1
Approximate date: 1789.
How to use it
A council choosing between two traffic schemes in Bristol is, on this opening, already in the jurisdiction of pain and pleasure: injuries, time, noise, and the relief of them. Bentham wants those masters admitted rather than replaced by a word like natural right that will not say whose suffering counts. The schemes still need numbers and a decision about whose pain is in the sum; The sentence does not do the count; It names the currency.
A mindset reading
Sovereign masters is a provocation, and it is meant to include the ought, not only the psychology. People who agree that humans seek pleasure often refuse the idea that pleasure settles what is right. That refusal is the real disagreement with the chapter, and it should be stated there rather than by caricaturing him as someone who cannot tell a pinch from a principle; He thinks the principle is the only one that can be stated clearly.
Understand the philosophy
The key term is utility, defined in the same chapter as the property of tending to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness, or to prevent mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness. The two masters are the opening image. Chapter 1 then rejects asceticism and sympathy as rival principles. The English of 1789 is his; Mill will later revise the account of pleasure; The opening sentence is the part that makes the revision necessary.
- ethics
- happiness
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the opening as the foundation of the principle of utility: pain and pleasure govern both what people actually do and the standard of what they ought to do, so that morals and legislation have a natural measure. A rival reading hears a crude claim that every motive is a twinge, missing his later detail about motives, sanctions, and the calculation of consequences. The sentence opens chapter 1. The principle itself is stated in the paragraphs that follow, in terms of the tendency to augment or diminish happiness.
Did Jeremy Bentham really say this?
Well attested. Bentham's own English, the opening of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, chapter 1. Pleasure and pain determine what we ought to do as well as what we do, on his account. The wording is secure.
Which work is it in?
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, chapter 1 Approximate date: 1789.